The biggest crisis in the history of Italian football has escalated with the news that the Justice Ministry is sending inspectors to check on the alleged role of two magistrates.
On Tuesday, outgoing Justice Minister Roberto Castelli authorised an internal inquest into the possible involvement of Pinerolo prosecutor Giuseppe Marabotto and Massa Carrara Judge Cosimo Ferri in an alleged web of sporting corruption.
The decision came after it emerged that the magistrates featured in wiretaps recorded by Naples prosecutors as part of a probe into allegations that former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi led a criminal group which steered the 2004-05 championship in his team's favour.
Moggi is one of 41 people under judicial investigation in Naples for attempting to condition match results, along with former Italian Soccer Federation (FIGC) chief Franco Carraro, former FIGC vice president Innocenzo Mazzini, Lazio chairman Claudio Lotito and Fiorentina owner Diego Della Valle.
In one of the wiretaps, Marabotto asks Moggi to get Juventus tickets for a ministry inspector going to Pinerolo in order to "sweeten him up".
On Wednesday Marabotto insisted nothing was amiss.
"I was joking in the call," he said. "I was presenting Moggi to a ministerial inspector who is a massive Juventus fan. He came to Pinerolo to check on the transmission of IT data, certainly not to examine my work". Naples investigators also recorded conversations between Ferri and Lotito, and Ferri and Mazzini, which are said to allude to system of "refereeing favours".
Ferri, who is also on FIGC's economic disputes commission, said he was not guilty of any "irregular behaviour" and was "surprised and upset" at Castelli's move. The Judiciary's self-governing body, the CSM, has launched an inquiry into these wiretaps too.
The Neapolitan prosecutors also recorded conversations Moggi had with outgoing Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu, although the content does not refer to anything illegal .
Prosecutors in Naples, Rome, Turin, Parma, Udine and Reggio Calabria are probing various aspects of the scandal, which has been dubbed 'Calciopoli' (Soccerville) and 'Clean Feet' - a reference to the 'Clean Hands' or 'Bribesville' corruption scandals of the early 1990s, which swept away much of the political establishment of the day.
According to Italian legal procedures, prosecutors must formally notify suspects they are being investigated but it does not necessarily mean they will then be indicted.
Rome prosecutors have been interviewing people from the game in recent days as part of their probe into GEA World, the footballers' agency run by Moggi's son Alessandro.
GEA is being investigated for alleged use of "threats and violence" to coerce players and clubs into using its services and abuse of a "dominant position" on the market. On Wednesday Naples, Turin and Rome prosecutors met to exchange information and coordinate their efforts.
UEFA has warned FIGC that it will have to work quickly to discipline any guilty clubs, as it needs to know which Italian sides will take part in next season's European club competitions by the end of the upcoming World Cup.
Juventus risk being dumped from Serie A and the European Champions League and stripped of the 2005 and 2006 crowns.
Fiorentina and Lazio, which finished fourth and sixth in Serie A, may be relegated too and lose their respective places in the Champions League and the UEFA Cup. Milan, which is implicated in the scandal but less deeply than the other clubs, but could lose its Champions League slot as well. On Tuesday, Guido Rossi, 75, was appointed emergency commissioner of FIGC to replace Carraro, who resigned last week .
Rossi, a law professor from outside the soccer world, said he would look abroad for solutions to the unprecedented crisis.
"(The system) of sporting justice is the first problem we'll have to work on," said Rossi, who has a track record of steering corporations out of crises .
